The Denver Gem & Mineral Show

    The Denver Gem and Mineral Show (DGMS) is always a fun time. The Show lasts for 10 days and is the second biggest mineral Show after the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show with several separate venues. In order to make it a successful Show, I decided to attend several main venues on their opening day. The opening days of the different venues were staggered. I had also agreed to help my friend at his booth the last few days of the Show due to staffing problems.
Below are my 2 big purchases.

    I planned my visits to the DGMS based on when the venues opened.  The first venue to open was the Western Arena next to the Denver Coliseum.  Collector’s Edge (CE) also had a preview of their latest finds from the Detroit City Adit of the fabled Sweet Home Mine on the same day. I’ve been thinking of building a Colorado mineral collection and I know I will never have a chance to find/mine rhodochrosite.  I’d been saving money for about a year to purchase a nice rhodo and decided today was that day. After an hour and a half trip up towards Golden, CO from Colorado Springs, I entered the inner sanctum of CE.  I was surprised at the lack of customers.  I was one of only about half a dozen customers ogling the minerals. Not sure why there were not more customers, but I was happy to get some personal attention. After some deliberation I picked out a piece and paid for my purchase. I had been watching CE’s podcasts for the last few months for information on DGMS events and decided to stop at CE’s room at the Fine Mineral Show as well.  Evidently the Fine Mineral Show located at Denver Marriott West was allowing guests in if they knew the secret knock (haha).  All dealers at the Marriott were in hotel rooms and would let you in once they got set up.  I got into the CE showroom and ogled their tourmaline for a while. Then I got down to business and picked out a wulfenite from the La Morita mine in Mexico for my collection. Next stop was a box store in Denver followed by a visit to the Austin's booth at the Western Arena.

    I made two stops at the Coliseum area prior to visiting Austin.  I’ve always wanted a zeolite or two from India and I was looking for something showy. I purchased two pieces and worked out a deal. Next up was a dealer from Brazil. He sells quartz by the kilogram, but disappointed me when he said his shipment of smoky quartz had not arrived. The dealer was hopeful that it would arrive before the end of the Show.  I picked up a couple quartz clusters “super 7” that I thought I might be able to resell and then moved on to the Western Arena.  Austin’s booth looked good with a lot of nice looking material attractively displayed. His specimens outclassed most of the stuff at the other booths. I figured he’d have a good Show.

Austin and Lola at his booth

    My next visit to DGMS was to the opening day of the Crowne Plaza venue.  I visited with a few dealers but found their prices were a bit rich for me.  I was interested in a couple of specimens: A fluorite from Outer Mongolia, a smoky quartz with spessartine garnets and a piece of gold.  I could not find a nice fluorite for under $400 (over-priced in my mind). I tried to work with the Chinese on a smoky with spessartine garnets but they were not dealing. The piece had too much damage for the price they were asking. The small bit of crystalized gold I was interested in had no provenance or gram weight for the piece. I passed on all 3. One dealer that I had not seen before was selling mainly Elmwood, TN fluorite.

Elmwood Tennessee Fluorites on Sphalerite

I had seen some similar items when I was in Tucson months ago. This dealer's prices were better than those at the TGMS and after looking for a bit he approached me and said everything was 10% off. I finally picked two out and he complimented/patronized me, telling me I had picked out the best ones he had. Of course I did. :-) I then renegotiated the price down a little bit and made off with my purchases.

   I did make my way to Collector’s Edge wholesale area also at the Crowne Plaza.  I purchased two flats of lower end Detroit City adit material from the Sweet Home Mine and returned to the Coliseum. While I was showing one of the flats I bought at CE to Austin, another dealer came over and said he wanted to buy the flat. 

Some mineral specimens from Collector's Edge wholesale area

I sold the flat to him making a tidy profit. I will keep the other flat of minerals for study. While at the Western Arena, Austin showed me some interesting quartz with goethite-like inclusions. The crystals exhibited both hopper and scepter habits. I ran off to that dealer and purchased two specimens for my collection.

Picture courtesy: Bob Germano

    My next visit to the Show was Friday at the opening of the Denver Merchandise Mart.  I sold a couple pieces to a dealer I know and spied some interesting amazonite at another table.  The amazonite were not cleaned very well.  I looked at the pieces for sale and there was a black mineral on them that suggested columbite (fairly rare mineral).  I asked the seller what the black mineral was and she said she didn’t know.  She showed the mineral to the dealer and he said that’s columbite!  Pull those pieces!  The dealer decided he would sell me the one I picked out and pull the rest.  I paid $40 for a nice cluster of amazonite with a number of small columbite. I then spent some time talking to a few of the other dealers at the

Black columbites embedded in amazonite, courtesy BG

Show, checking their inventory. Then, back to the Western Arena.

    Both Saturday and Sunday I worked with Austin at his booth. I can’t really say much good about the Western Arena venue from the standpoint of a dealer's helper. I would say the biggest problems were lack of security, poor ventilation and overall tedium. On the plus side, customers were friendly and there was a certain amount of camaraderie amongst the dealers. The booth suffered from theft and crystal damage, both of which are to be expected to some degree. My biggest complaint would be with the lack of security.  Security (police) should be walking the venue, not hiding out in a separate area away from the public eating donuts. If there was a problem at your booth there was no way to contact security. The police should be around as a visible deterrent, yet for the most part they were invisible. Secondly, nobody but dealers should be allowed into the venue prior to it’s starting time (didn’t happen).  At the end of the day security should have conducted a sweep through the venue to shoo out the public… Folks were still milling about a half hour after the Show was closed. More than one individual tried to help themselves to items while the dealers were focused elsewhere packing up at the end of the day. Although the venue was air conditioned the HVAC system could not keep up with the 90F heat. The fact that there was a livestock event in the arena the previous week didn’t help with the odor. The last 2 days were a bit of a downer, but maybe I’m not cut out to be a dealer at a lower end venue.

Overall I enjoyed the DGMS and can’t wait til Tucson.

A close-up of another CE piece from the Sweet Home Mine. You can see quartz, fluorite and tetrahedrite. Courtesy: BG